I Wasn't Fast Enough
by Sarabibliomania
Summary: "Cato! Cato!"  The name ripped through me like acid tearing through me in jagged strips and all at once I knew terror and panic.  "Clove!"


Disclaimer: I always loved the scene in the Hunger Games when Clove dies and Cato run to try and save her. It was such a short moment and yet it had so much impact and I was mad that they took it out of the movie. In any case I don't own anything and this is just a scene I re-imagined from the book. Enjoy!

"Cato! Cato!"

I stumbled to a stop, my feet connecting awkwardly over the twisted roots and rocks and froze for a moment. My heart deafened in my ears and seemed to muffle everything around me while intensifying it at the same time.

"Cato! Cato!"

The name ripped through me like acid tearing through me in jagged strips and all at once I knew terror and panic.

"Clove!"

I tore off through the woods shoving myself off trees to propel myself further through the thicket and breaking cuts and bruises across my legs. Everything was red and distorted in my vision like being stung by the tracker jacks with my pulse tense in my temple and everything hurting and too fast and too much.

"Clove!"

She had to hear me by now. Had to know that I was coming, that I would save her, that she wasn't alone and I hadn't left her.

"Clove!"

I tasted blood around the word, jagged with the feel of it on my tongue. My head was pounding from exertion and I felt sick everywhere with sweat stained against my skin like a second layer making my hands slick against the trees I shoved myself off of.

"Cato!"

Her voice was quieter now, more broken, more scared. I should be getting closer. Why wasn't I any closer? I nearly stumbled over a log and propelled myself out of the forest with the cornucopia visible and the sight of the District 12 girl frozen on the grass. A body lay several feet away from her, small and haphazardly spread across the grass.

"CLOVE!"

The girl from District 12 looked up as she saw me and bolted into the forest but I barely saw her. I half crawled, half ran to Clove's side and collapsed next to her with my vision distorted and the threat of sick brokenly uneven in my stomach.

"Clove."

Her eyes stared up at me uncertainly, blood splattered across her lips and a dent pressed into her forehead that was almost invisible from the sweep of her sweat dampened hair.

"Clove. Please don't leave please don't leave me stay with me."

I was pleading. Pleading with her, with Death with Fate itself to not take her away from me. Not now when we were so close. When the rules were changed and we could win together and return home with our hands clasped and the roar of pride from our District deafening in our eyes.

"Clove ..."

My voice barely came out in a whisper, my eyes searching from some movement from hers but there wasn't any. They were still. She was gone.

"Clove ..."

Everything seemed to fade. The edges of the world I had found myself so prideful in shattered and blurred so that only she lay in focus. The delicate shades of green mixed to shape her eyes, the untidy hold of her braid, the light sprinkle of freckles across her nose that I always secretly wanted to count but never took the chance to attempt.

"Clove."

I could remember the first time I met her, when I called her short and she pinned me to the ground with a knife to my throat with a threat to never call her that again. When we would meet up training together and I would wink at her across the room and she would roll her eyes in response. When our names were both called and I stared at her over on the platform hating everything for making it fated that we would have to kill each other.

"Clove."

I gently raised my fingers and trailed them down her forehead to close her eyes, her eyelashes soft and trembling by the movement. I lowered my forehead to hers and closed my eyes. She was still warm. Not yet cold to the touch. If only I had made it a few seconds sooner. Another minute and I could have saved her, could have ripped Thresh and bashed in his skull with Clove breathlessly urging me on. But I wasn't. I was strong. I was skilled. But I wasn't fast. Not fast enough.

"I'm so sorry."

I lifted my head from hers and opened my eyes, wedges of hurt – of weakness – cutting through me and lying my insides into shreds. A cannon echoed distantly and I lowered my eyes so I wouldn't see her image flashed across the sky. I could remember the time I had kissed her, when I hesitantly pressed her lips to hers and she waited almost a full moment before kissing me back.

I wasn't fast enough.

Movement caught my eyes and I blinked them back into focus as I saw something moving in the woods like someone was running fast. Thresh. Unadulterated hatred hardened inside me and then there was nothing. No weakness, no pain, no thought or feeling just an anger and a hatred twisted enough to break me into insanity. I rose to my feet slowly, everything inside me tense with images of breaking him over and over again until begs for mercy were bloody on his lips.

Clove. 


End file.
